Page 19 of Captured By the Dragon Warlord
SCARLETT
Isleep fitfully. Dreams I can’t grasp at wake me, hot and sweaty, before I fall back to sleep. Noises startle me. Noises I don’t think are real.
All in all, not a good night. And as Cestapal bustles into the quarters, I feel like absolute shit. I should have gone after Dexx.
“Did you sleep in your dress?” she asks, followed by a hissing sound.
“What else was I supposed to sleep in?” I reply.
Cestapal presses her paw on a nearby wall and a drawer slides out. “I put more clothing in here for you.”
I glare at the hidden drawer. Why didn’t I think of looking for it? I guess my mind was otherwise occupied.
I scramble out of the pit and look into the drawer. There’s underwear along with some other comfortable looking tops and pants.
“Do you know where Dexx is?” I ask her as I wriggle out of the dress and pull on fresh clothing.
“No doubt completing his shift in the mines,” Cestapal says.
“I don’t understand why he works down there. He’s a warlord. You’d have thought he would have his warriors doingthe work,” I say absently before last night’s events and the cave-in hit me once again.
“All of Lord Dexx’s crew, including him, work in the mines. They must spend twelve nova-hours in a nova-day in their shifted forms.”
I lift my head and stare at her. “What? Why?”
“It is part of their mutation, from the wormhole. It goes with their inability to tolerate bright lights. If they don’t shift, they get sick and die.”
My hand is at my mouth. “But Sarkarnii don’t get sick,” I say. “Kerra told me.”
“Sarkarnii do not, in the main, get sick, but this is a different sort of sickness, one which appears to have affected only Lord Dexx’s clan, and only if they do not shift every nova-day.”
“The Sarkarnii like being dragons though, right? I mean they like being big and…toothy.”
“The Sarkarnii like the ability to choose,” Cestapal says. “Lord Dexx and his clan do not get to choose.”
She turns away from me, disappearing through her small flap. I finish dressing and find myself at a loss. I’m not sure what any of this means, if Dexx has to be his dragon for a large portion of the day.
Although I think it explains some of his grumpiness, even if it doesn’t excuse it.
I pick up my comm device and hit up the group chat.
Hey
Kerra
Oh thank god! We were so worried.
Maggie
Have you been *railed* by a dragon yet?
Rosalie
Really, Maggie?
But also, have you?
Dexx is a growly twat but he hasn’t tried anything
